Media Bakery Offers Revolutionary Visual Search

"With visual search, researchers relying on the convenience of Media Bakery's one-stop shopping will now find that perfect image on our large databases in less time."

Santa Barbara, CA - August 8th, 2005 - Today Media Bakery began offering a new search technology that allows users to sort their stock photo search results based on thousands of visual clues in an image. The initiative was launched in response to a critical need for better search strategies that enable stock photo buyers to locate the most appropriate image in a large database more easily. The new technology augments traditional keyword searching by utilizing the right-brained visual function of the photo researcher.

It works better than keywords alone when searching for concepts, moods, colors, or specific layout options. Visual search takes full advantage of the right-brain intuitive, the inherit strength of most creative people. Now researchers can point and click on images to quickly define visual points that bring all similar images to the top of search results.

Visual search actually re-sorts the keyworded results bringing the best visual matches right to the top. One click provides positive results for many concepts. Images that are not chosen provide information too. Consolidated feedback from multiple images quickly finds all the desirable images and cuts down significantly on search time. "Media Bakery is the largest stock photo site to offer their customers the power of visual search. Considering they have over 750,000 images, visual search will likely save each of their clients a minimum of 10-20 minutes per search, adding up to hours in a single day," promised VIMA CEO David Telleen-Lawton.

Media Bakery chose VIMA’s technology platform for a variety of reasons. Unlike technologies that visually match to a single image, VIMA MindReader™ Technology actually learns from each positive and negative selection made during a search. Visual clues, even seemingly contradictory ones (e.g., a red sky and a blue sky), are combined by advanced machine-learning to understand what the searcher has in mind.

"Media Bakery has never been shy about bringing uniqueness to the stock photo consolidator model. We are very proud to offer this revolutionary service. Because we carry so many collections, we have literally hundreds of thousands of image choices in our database. With visual search, researchers relying on the convenience of Media Bakery's one-stop shopping will now find that perfect image on our large databases in less time." said Chad Newell CEO of Media Bakery. "What’s also interesting to me about what we can deliver with VIMA is that we don’t prematurely throw away ideally matched images because they weren’t keyworded consistently or didn’t apparently have the same visual look as images in a results list. Instead, the researcher keeps providing additional visual clues and the best images keep coming to the top – virtually none are ignored." stated Newell. The service debuts on the Media Bakery web site today.

About Media Bakery's Collection
Media Bakery features a large collection of well known Royalty Free companies such as Alaska Stock, Artbeats, Artville, Bluemoon Stock, Blinkstock, Brand X Pictures, Bitstream, Comstock, Corbis, Creatas, Cut and Deal, Digital Vision, Dynamic Graphics, Eyeland Studio, f-Stop, GraphicScene, Imagesource, Image100, Image Farm, Imagezoo, ImageState, Image Shop, IT Stock, Photodisc, Royalty Free Music, Rubberball Productions, Stockbyte, Stockdisc, Sound Ideas, Thinkstock, Triangle Images and dozens of other content publishers and suppliers. Media Bakery is also increasing its roster by adding several new publishers every month. Media Bakery prides itself on the unique collections of boutique Royalty Free Photos, Footage, and Music brands it carries.

About Media Bakery's Website
Media Bakery uses its website technology to allow customers to preview, purchase and download images, footage, music, fonts, and flash directly from the site. Customers can also download entire Royalty Free CD Titles on line. Traditional drop shipment delivery is made available for customers who wish to receive a Royalty Free product sent to them.

About VIMA Technologies, Inc.
VIMA’s patented image search and image categorization processes allow it to lead the industry in content-based image search and categorization for both speed and accuracy. VIMA is probably best known for offering the only active learning image search solution in the market and the only company offering tunable image categorization and filtering solutions. VIMA Technologies, Inc. is a privately-held company located in Goleta, California, just across the street from the University of California at Santa Barbara. For more information, visit: www.VIMAtech.com.

About Media Bakery
Media Bakery provides royalty free content and media licensing services to businesses around the globe. Combining unique internet technologies with one of the world's largest royalty free publisher resources, Media Bakery is transforming the way royalty free media is searched, purchased, and delivered. The privately held Company is headquartered outside Santa Barbara California in Carpinteria, California. For more information on the company and services offered please visit online: www.MediaBakery.com or contact:

Michael Calcagno
Marketing and Public Relations Associate
805-566-9262
Mike@MediaBakery.com

VIMA Technologies, Inc. is located at 120 Cremona Drive, Goleta, California 93117.
You can reach us by telephone at 805-685-7067 or via email at info@VIMAtech.com.

For Media Inquiries, contact:

David Telleen-Lawton
Phone: (805)685-7067
Fax: (805)685-2178
DTL@VIMAtech.com